Oracle, Linux, Sun to blame for Sidekick Danger data loss

TgDaily, 16th October 2009

Well, blow me down. After days of sanctimonious posturing by the world, his dog and his blogger, it turns out that the problems at Microsoft subsidiary Danger, which threatened the data integrity of Sidekick users, were all down to Oracle, Sun and Linux. No Microsoft products were involved.

TG Daily reader Tommy T informed us earlier today that: “Microsoft was running on Sun Solaris/Linux/Oracle-based Danger servers at the Verizon Business Center in San Jose as part of a contractual obligation to T-Mobile.”

When we asked Microsoft to comment on the report from Tommy T that the problems were rooted in Sun Microsystems, Linux and Oracle systems rather than being a failing of the Redmond outfit’s own products, we received this official reply:

“Sidekick runs on Danger’s proprietary service that Microsoft inherited when it acquired Danger in 2008. The Danger service is built on a mix of Danger created technologies and 3rd party technologies. Microsoft’s other cloud computing projects are totally separate from the Danger Service and do not rely on the Danger Service technology.”

Well, who’d have thought it, eh? As we wrote yesterday, much kudos to Microsoft for recovering the data, especially as the problems stemmed from the failure of someone else’s products.